| Mitzvot en vue de l’omniprésence divine (1982) | ||
| 1. | Caroncule | (2:56) |
| 2. | Sclérotique | (3:32) |
| 3. | Iris | (1:56) |
| 4. | Pupille | (3:32) |
| 5. | Limite de la pupille | (1:56) |
| 6. | Limite de l’iris | (3:54) |
| 7. | Peau | (0:20) |
|
Mathieu Gaulin, soprano saxophone – Caroline Blaquière, sopranino and alto saxophones – Isabelle Choquette, tenor saxophone – Andriy Talpash, baritone saxophone |
||
| Breathing – or the Daffy Excursion of Tolerance into the Cosmic Lung (1984) | ||
| 8. | Breathing | (26:00) |
| Douglas Schmidt, accordion | ||
Brégent on Brégent
An Antidote to Complacency
A concert isn’t like going to mass, it’s a celebration of human intelligence in sound. You shouldn’t be afraid to look at yourself in the mirror and say: “This is the 20th century.” I’ve worked in almost every musical genre. When I listen to contemporary music, my mind opens. It’s incredible to hear a structure and all it s parameters, to hear all the aspects of music harmonized by the structure. In the end, contemporary music serves as an antidote to all the complacency that can exist in society. Without music, the spirit would die. Our civilization would crumble.
“You Are a Utopian Composer”
Not only the composer, the man as well! At times I have the feeling I’m living on a totally different planet; the world is much more beautiful in my mind than it is in reality. I make many mistakes like that. I’ll give you an example. I fantasize that musicians have 24 hours a day to work on my music, just because I spend 24 hours a day writing it! Unfortunately, life doesn’t really work like that. In the old days at the Conservatoire , we heard incredible works by Xenakis, Stockhausen, Boulez, orchestras in every corner playing in different tempi. All this influenced me a great deal. But in reality, that’s not how it works, especially if you’re a utopian on top of it! However, utopianism is essential to me… a world without utopiansis a lost cause. You have to take risks, you have to push forward despite it all… I still do it, even today. I won’t restrain myself in a section which requires a certain complexity, because one shouldn’t do it , because you get your knuckles rapped, because the musicians don’t have time to learn it. No, I’m terribly sorry, if it needs to be written, I’ll write it. That’s utopia.
The Trad-Sens Concertio (1987)
Another example of my utopianism: the Montreal Symphony asked me to write a piano concerto. They ask Michel-Georges Brégent to write a piano concerto: “be a good boy and write a nice little piano concerto that will open the evening, 18 minutes.” Naturally, this went in one ear and out the other. My intention was to write the piano concerto of the century! So I took the 33 greatest concerti and superimposed their harmonic progressions, musical motives and tempi progressions, then analyzed and compiled all the information. Finally, this magnificent contraption came out of the computer. What was happening at the level of tempo and harmony alone was stupendous. It yielded an entire world to discover. It also occurred to me that this would all go by pretty quickly in 18 minutes. But I decided to write it anyway and see over time what would become of it. Of course, I wrote the whole thing, 198 pages. I had completely forgotten any notion of duration. Louis-Philippe Pelletier (the pianist) played the whole thing flawlessly, also thinking the work lasted 20 minutes. We got to the first rehearsal with Charles Dutoit, methodical as ever.
